China expands trials of new drug-relief therapy to curb spread of AIDS

South China's Guangdong Province, which borders Hong Kong, and Beijing have announced their plan to join five other provincial areas to offer a narcotics substitute to drug addicts almost free of charge to fight drug abuse and the spread of AIDS.

Drug addicts in those areas will be offered adanon, an opium-type medicine, as a narcotics substitute to alleviate their addictions under the State-sanctioned program, which critics say lacks a legal basis.

According to the program, drug addicts will take fixed amounts of adanon orally under the surveillance of medical workers at designated adanon therapy centers.

The move is part of the efforts China has taken to deal with the challenges of controlling drug abuse.

During her speech to the National AIDS Prevention Committee last month, Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi described the move as an effective intervention in preventing the spread of AIDS.

The vice-premier said China must be firm in carrying out the experiments, and continue to offer clean syringes in exchange for used ones and to promote condom use.

In February 2003, the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Public Security and the State Food and Drug Administration made public a provision on community-based use of narcotics substitute among heroine addicts.

Since then, Yunnan Province, which borders Myanmar and China's southwestern Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, eastern Zhejiang Province, and southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, have launched the experiments.

Medical experts said about 80 heroine addicts are involved in such an experiment in the Disease Prevention and Control Center inGejiu City in Yunnan, the first of its kind in the province. The patients and their family members said the treatment has proved to be effective.

Min Xiangdong, director of the center, said the experiment began less than a month ago after the center was designated by thecentral government for the experiment and six months of preparation.

The rare interview was made possible with the approval of the Yunnan Provincial AIDS Prevention and Control Taskforce, and Xinhua was allowed to take pictures of drug addicts taking fixed amounts of adanon orally under the surveillance of two medical doctors.

The drug addicts have to pay 5 yuan (60 US cents) a day for the drug during the experiment, half the price set by the provincial and central governments. The charge is a token payment as the drug is as expensive as heroine on the black market.

At the center, a 34 year-old drug addict only identified as Mr.Zhao told Xinhua said he had a history of using banned drugs for about a decade before joining the treatment.

He said he came to feel like a normal person after experiment in the past two weeks, and takes about 75 ml of the drug substitute every afternoon, while working as a volunteer at the center.

Zhao, who looks good, said the substitute makes him feel good every day as he never feels the urge for heroine.

"The service is good and I'm confident about my future," said Zhao with a smile.

He used his experience to convince his former fellow heroine users to participate in the treatment.

Accompanied by her 81-year-old mother, a thin woman who gave her surname as Liu, came to the center for the first time late last month. Zhang Lichong, a 50 year-old doctor, prescribed 50 ml of the substitute for her.

Liu's mother said they applied to local police for the service after they became aware of the service through community-based publicity.

Zhang said they set the dose after careful medical observation of Liu for undesirable reactions from taking the prescribed dose in the first three consecutive days.

After taking the greenish medicine orally, Liu said it tasted somewhat bitter. She was signaled to go to the waiting room, where she chatted with her mother or picked up some leaflets on the experiment, while doctors observed her for about 30 minutes for signs of reaction.

Zhang told Liu to go home half an hour later as she showed no sign of improper reaction.

The city diagnosed its first group of AIDS patients or HIV carriers in 1996, and all of them were drug addicts, who still account for 70 percent of AIDS patients and HIV carriers, Min Xiangdong said.

"From a medical perspective, we have been arguing that the country should face reality and offer a narcotics substitute for drug users to prevent them from sharing a syringe and contracting AIDS," said the director.

Regarding the concerns over the legal status and moral issues involved in the treatment, Min said "We are a medical institution, not a drug rehabilitation department. So long it proves effective medically in curbing the spread of AIDS, we think it's worth trying."

Official figures showed that 840,000 Chinese have been infected of HIV and 80,000 of them are AIDS patients, making China Asia's second and the world's 14th largest HIV/AIDS population. The majority of HIV carriers and AIDS patients in China are young people and live in rural areas.

China unveiled earlier this year a package of measures to fight AIDS, including the creation of a national taskforce on AIDS headed by Vice-Premier Wu Yi, increased funding support and improved medical services for AIDS patients and HIV carriers, plans to improve public awareness on prevention and control of the disease.